Artist's Portfolio

Madeleine Strobel

Born in Venezuela, daughter of Czech emigrants, I spent my first ten years in South America, before moving to Europe. I completed my schooling in Switzerland before moving to Germany in 1971. In 1980 I moved to Scotland and enrolled at Edinburgh College of Art. The City of Edinburgh Council purchased a large charcoal drawing from my degree show. I have been a practicing artist ever since, working at first in Carpenters Road Studios (run by ACME) in East London, at that time the largest studio complex in Europe. I took part in their commemorative exhibition in 2011. In 1996 I moved to Park Studios in Finsbury Park, North London.

Since arriving in Devon in 2004, I have worked in a barn not far from my home in South Hams. I have exhibited in many group and solo exhibitions in Devon and as far afield as Switzerland, Belgium, Germany and Venezuela, and my work is in many public collections. My personal quest is for the self and its relationship with the world. Landscape is my chosen subject matter and I love being on a boat out at sea. Sailing means being part of the landscape, inside it, at the mercy of the elements. My love for papermaking drives from time spent in the Printing department in Edinburgh, where I learnt to make my own paper from old cotton rags, jeans and even my children’s old nappies. With a travelling scholarship that I won in 1983 I visited the traditional papermaking village in Kurotani in Japan, where the techniques have not changed for 500 years. Today in my studio I create works on paper that incorporate flotsam and debris, rusty metal and seaweed, that I find on the shore.